


Love Alters

by phoebesmum



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Space Opera
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 17:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoebesmum/pseuds/phoebesmum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere among strange and distant stars, cargo pilot and loner Kayc encounters Dani, the mind-wiped Scion of House Rydell, and learns that privilege has a price, but that what's worth having cannot be bought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Alters

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate universe, based on the characters of _Sports Night_. Written May 2004; the result of watching a great deal of _Sports Night_, along with a great deal of _Firefly_, and of having _Les Miserables_ and _Flowers for Algernon_ knocking about in my head for no good reason. Much melodrama ensues, many clichés, and some sex.

Celestine Station, pretty as its name sounded, was a shithole. Kayc might have been a novice in treading the spaceways, but a shithole was a shithole, and he knew one when he saw one. He'd spent the first twenty years of his life in one, and he'd seen plenty more over the past six months. Truth was, the trade he plied now, he'd seen little else, nor had much expectation of better. Still and all, that didn't mean he had to like it. Or that he had to hang around a moment longer than he needed to complete the absolute basics: refuel, reprovision, stow away his cargo and leave. Or so he thought, until a hand on his shoulder stopped him as he was about to embark. He half-turned, and found himself looking up – a novel experience for him, tall as he was (freakishly tall, cruel folk said) – into the craggy, stubbled face of the harbourmaster.

 

"Problem?" he asked, resigned. Not really a question; places like these, there always was a problem. If there wasn't, someone would come along and make one.

 

"You're short on your cargo manifest." A large, grubby thumb stabbed at a line of illegible script that any but the blindest could have seen had been tacked onto the end of the original list. "One more piece."

 

Kayc sighed. So: he was going to be smuggling by default. Well. It wouldn't be the first time. And so far his gods, questionable as their existence might be, had seemed to smile on him. "What is it?"

 

"Shipment for Halcyon. Delivery to House Rydell." The harbourmaster pulled back his pad and scanned the last few pages. "Everything cleared and above board – " He leered at Kayc. "Had you worried there, eh?" Kayc shrugged indifferently. "One item – may be kind of high maintenance, but you can probably charge compensation if there's trouble – House Rydell's loaded …"

 

"I've heard the name," Kayc admitted, but he was frowning. "What do you mean, 'trouble'? Is it hazardous? Volatile? Because my ship's not up to – "

 

"Your ship's up to whatever House Rydell pays it to be up to," the other man snapped, and turned away to send instructions over his wire. Then he looked back. "As for 'volatile' … well. You might get more than you bargained for."

 

By Kayc's reckoning he already had, but there was no point in saying so. At his back he heard the warehouse doors swish open, then close again, and he turned to see what he'd been let in for this time.

 

At first he was puzzled: there was only a port security guard there, her hand steady on the arm of a tall, slightly built young man in drab green coveralls. Then it clicked, and he raised a protest.

 

"You said cargo! This isn't a passenger ship!"

 

"Room in your hold," said the harbourmaster, with another glance at his pad. "Nice, empty space just _here_ – " He held out the pad. "See? And forget what I said before. Treat him right, he's no bother – he's past the fighting stage. We've had him here a couple of days now, and half the time we pretty much forgot about him. Cries in the night, sometimes, but he can keep himself clean. And he don't talk, so don't feel like you have to make conversation. You want, you can keep him locked in there, he won't know any better. That way, he won't trouble you at all."

 

Kayc was staring at the other man. "How can you talk about him like – "

 

"Like he's not there?" The man tapped his forehead significantly. "'Cos he ain't. Mindwipe. Boy's just a walking piece of meat now."

 

 _Mindwipe?!_ Kayc turned his stare to the boy, who stood quiescent, immobile, empty eyes fixed straight ahead, gazing at nothing. He couldn't have been much more than sixteen: what in all the hells could a kid like this have done that was so bad as to have incurred the maximum penalty? For that matter, what kind of godsforsaken sector was this, to mindwipe a minor? Even on his homeworld they would never have gone so far.

 

"Families' feud." The harbourmaster must have seen Kayc's expression and deigned to explain a little further. "Sieur Rydell stepped out of line, boy was forfeit – now they're sending him home to Daddy to remind him to mind his manners in the future." He glanced at his colleague for confirmation. "House Coburg, wasn't it?"

 

"Who else would snatch the son and heir right out from under the noses of University security?" the woman said. "House Coburg plays for keeps. This'll put a real crimp in House Rydell's business for a _long_ time." Then she grinned. "Lucky I got an insider tip and cashed in my shares, huh?"

 

"Nice to be able to _afford_ shares," the harbourmaster grouched. He pulled the young man round by his shoulder, pushed his head down, ran his scanner over the exposed skin of the boy's neck. Kayc heard a faint 'beep', and the harbourmaster turned the boy back again, straightened him, and shoved him toward the ship. "He's tagged. Don't get tempted to dump him out the airlock – the Rydells like to keep tabs on what's theirs, even if it's damaged goods."

 

"They didn't – " Kayc found his voice cracking, and had to swallow. "They didn't reprogram him? They just left him … _empty?_"

 

"If I know Sieur Coburg," the security guard commented, her voice dry, "his boys will've left a little time bomb. Something that'll hit Sieur Rydell where it really hurts."

 

"Losing his son wasn't enough for that?" Kayc found the need to swallow again, harder this time. Then the woman's words registered, and he swung back toward the harbourmaster. "Time bomb? _Volatile?_"

 

The man raised an indifferent shoulder, spread out his hands, gave Kayc a sheepish grin. "Nothing I can do now, son – he's on your manifest, he's your responsibility till Sieur Rydell takes him off your hands." He signed off on his pad, and pressed for a hard copy, clicked the chip from the base and pressed it into Kayc's hand, then clapped him on the shoulder. "Play it safe, do like I said – lock him in the hold and forget about him." He stepped back, and tipped his cap. "Good luck!"

 

And then it was just the two of them, Kayc and the boy, left alone on the loading dock. Scion Rydell – Kayc assumed the title held good, circumstances notwithstanding – still stood where the guard had left him, motionless but for the slight trembling of his hands, his shallow breathing, an occasional slow blink. Even when Kayc moved in front of him, directly into his line of vision, he gave no sign of awareness. Kayc breathed a sigh.

 

"What in the nine hells am I supposed to do with you?!"

 

There was no answer. He hadn't really expected one. Well. The boy could walk, that had been demonstrated. They would walk, then. Kayc reached out and laid a gentle hand on the Scion's arm, altering his grip when the boy winced involuntarily and drew in a sharp breath. There were bruises on his wrists and on his forearms, more on his face, and his knuckles were torn; he hadn't gone down without a fight. Kayc felt an odd touch of pride at the thought. _Good, kid! You gave them something to think about, at least._ He exerted a little pressure, steering the boy forward. He stumbled at first, but then moved readily enough: up the gangway, through the airlock, into the cabin. Kayc settled him into the only available chair, the pilot's, and moved around him to close and seal the hatch and initiate launch procedures. Cold as she was, _Lisa's Luck_ would take a good ten minutes before she was ready to go. He had that long to make a decision.

 

He came back to kneel before the chair, taking the boy's cold hands in his own. "You can't stay here, not unless they reprogrammed you as a transit pilot." Silence. "Guess not, huh?" He sighed. "Well … I _could_ dump you in the hold … it's a short hop, the atmo'll hold that long … Seems unkind, though. I think you've had enough of that, huh? I think - _Lady!_" He found himself backed up against the steering panel, rocked back on his heels, hands flat on the floor, staring into wide brown eyes. Eyes that were huge, and fathomless, and terrified. And very, very much aware.

 

***

 

In Kayc's mind, he'd had time to make the trip to Halcyon, drop the boy off, stay for dinner, explore the family estates and spend a blissful night with the daughter of the house in the time it took him to restart his heart, which he was pretty sure had stopped altogether for a while. He closed his eyes; opened them again. No; it hadn't been his imagination. The boy was no more brain-dead than he was. He straightened, suddenly conscious of his dignity, his position as Captain, if only of a one-man junker, and he pushed himself up off the floor to loom over the boy, who lifted his head, watching him: hunted, wary.

 

"Do I get an explanation?" Kayc asked, his voice deliberately sharp and cold. He'd never liked being played for a fool; Lisa had found that out the hard way, and this kid was going to learn it too.

 

"I don't know this ship," the boy whispered. "I don't know you. Did my father send you for me? Who are you?"

 

Kayc shook his head. "Uh-uh. My ship – my questions. What was that story back there? My heart damn near bled for you – poor little victim suffering for your bad rich daddy's crimes."

 

The boy smiled grimly. "You can keep on bleeding. It was all true."

 

"But you're not …"

 

"Not yet." His eyes met Kayc's again, and his smile softened. "Sieur Coburg's technology doesn't come from the government." He thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Actually, that's pretty much moot, he _is_ the government on Bella Terra, he can use whatever he wants. The process you know is instantaneous – yes? Old personality out, new, improved personality in, over and done with?"

 

Kayc was pretty sure he wouldn't like where this was headed, but he nodded slowly anyway. "Yeeesss …?"

 

"That's not what they used on me. This is slow release, and cumulative. I can feel myself vanishing … a little at a time. Every time I sleep, I wake up, and I reach for memories that aren't there … that I don't even know what I'm reaching for …" He shivered, and looked away. "I'm afraid to sleep, now," he whispered. "I'm afraid all the time …"

 

"You _know?!_" Kayc was horrified. "How long �' ?"

 

"How long do I have, or how long ago did they do it? It's been three days. At the moment – " He tried to laugh; it wasn't very convincing. "At the moment, I'd say I'm about half the man I used to be. It's two days to Halcyon, if you're maintaining atmo. Probably just enough time for me to be able to see my father's face and still know what the look on it means."

 

Kayc had to look away. "Okay. That sucks, yeah." It was an understatement, but he had no words for the horror, the wanton, deliberate cruelty. "But do you want to tell me, why the big act back there? What was that about?"

 

The boy gave another shrug. "How long were you on Celestine?"

 

"About half a day," Kayc said, bewildered. "Why �' ?"

 

"And did you take to them? Would you invite them into your heart and your home?" The boy was smiling now; not pleasantly. "They're a bunch of crooks on Celestine, always have been. That's why Coburg used them for the transfer. If they'd known that they had me, and no-one to answer to, and that I still had all the details of my dad's business right here – " He touched the side of his head. "If they'd known that … and if they'd known that, whatever they did to me, no-one would ever know …" He stopped, and jumped to his feet, swung Kayc over to the chair and pushed his head down hard. _He's strong_, Kayc thought, surprised: he'd assume the spoilt, pampered rich brat would be soft and weak.

 

"Don't throw up!" the boy was saying, quick and urgent. "It's gross, the whole ship'll stink all the way out, plus you'll dehydrate and die and _I_ can't fly this fucking thing!"

 

"I wasn't – " Kayc started, then realised abruptly that he was, and clamped his mouth tightly shut. Above his head, he heard the boy give a small, tired, laugh.

 

"I listened to you talking. I thought, maybe I could trust you. I guess I was right – you're too squeamish to torture anyone." Kayc made a sound of protest in his throat, and the hand on his neck squeezed gentle reassurance. "You have a nice voice. Very … comforting."

 

Kayc said "Mrpf!" which was supposed to be 'Thanks!', or something like that, and heard another quiet laugh.

 

"Honestly, though? If anyone's entitled to puke, I think it should be me. In a couple of days I'll be pretty much down to the drooling vegetable stage, won't that be a treat? If I can still remember, I'll see if I can throw up on you then. As a gift. Okay?"

 

"Could you stop – Lady! How can you _joke_ about it?!" Kayc managed, through gritted teeth. The pressure on the back of his neck vanished; he looked up to see the boy slump against the bulkhead, tipping his head back and sighing.

 

"What am I supposed to do? Cry?" He turned his head, laying his cheek against the cold metal, and whispered, shamefaced, "I've done enough of that. I'll do more, I guess, once I can't help myself any more. Can you at least let me face this in my own way?"

 

Kayc nodded, uncertain of his voice, and turned toward the instrument panel. "We're about ready to go," he muttered.

 

"Took you long enough," the boy said. His voice was light, cool and cultured; it spoke of wealth and privilege and everything Kayc had ever despised, everything he and Lisa had once fought against. And now Lisa was, once again, a part of that world; and this boy's world was turned to ashes. And Kayc? What did he have, now?

 

Well, he had his ship. And he didn't have to take any nonsense from his unwanted passenger, no matter how extenuating his circumstances. "There was mention of an airlock …" he mused aloud.

 

"It's really a waste of time to try to scare me," the boy said, but he was laughing again, vivid, vibrant. "Plus, the airlock thing would actually be doing me a favour." It was a statement, matter-of-fact, without a hint of self-pity; that seemed, to Kayc, only to make it the more poignant. "Though I wouldn't be around to see what happened to _you_, if you tried it." His hand just brushed Kayc's shoulder. "You want me out of your way. Where can I go? Other – " He held up a hand, forestalling Kayc's answer, "Other than the obvious?"

 

Kayc pushed himself up out of the chair, and steered the boy back through the cabin. "Bathroom. Galley. Bunk. You decide. No-one provided a suit for you, so I'll have to maintain gravity and pressure – "

 

"I'm not that far gone yet," said the boy, sweetly, "I'd figured that much. Hence, two days."

 

" – although much more out of you, and I might change my mind …"

 

"And again, I'd remind you that my father's vengeance would be swift and terrible – "

 

"He'd have to catch me first."

 

"M'm. Also, he might decide you'd done him a favour and reward you … I'll be nice." The boy's sudden smile was sunny and angelic. "I haven't had a shower since the Coburgs took me – they were crappy hosts, and Celestine's a stranger to personal hygiene."

 

"How big a reward?" Kayc pretended to wonder, tilting his head to one side and running his eyes speculatively over the boy's body.

 

"I only said 'might'. You never can tell, with Father. Please-may-I-use-your-bathroom, Messire Nameless Pilot?"

 

"Kayc," Kayc said, suddenly embarrassed, as though he'd committed some huge social solecism. "Not 'Messire' anything."

 

"Ahhh." The boy nodded wisely. "A revolutionary. I think I was doing a module all about you people, back at Uni …" He cocked his head, considering. "Nope. Gone. Ah, well, I imagine it was pretty dull stuff, anyway." He held out his hand. Kayc shook it automatically, feeling vaguely foolish; he'd never had much time for formal manners. "I'm Dani. At least … for the next couple of days or so. After that …" His voice trailed away.

 

"After that …?" Kayc couldn't help but ask. Had House Coburg programmed a new personality? Was it, as the woman on Celestine had suggested, some kind of time bomb – something designed specifically to hurt or embarrass Sieur Rydell, to destroy this boy, who must once have been the source of all his hope, all his gladness? And if so … did Dani know what it was? Had they made him live with that?

 

Dani's mouth crooked. "We'll see, then, won't we?" And he actually winked at Kayc. "Should be interesting … don't you think?"

 

***

 

If Kayc were honest with himself, he'd have to admit that he wasn't the best pilot in the system. To be brutal, it was entirely possible that he wasn't even the best pilot aboard the _Lisa_. Docking, for one thing, he'd always found difficult; there were invariably a few bumps and misfires before he could bring the ship in safely. Launch wasn't quite so bad, and once he was out in open space with a course plotted, the autofunctions mostly took over. Still, he liked to be able to concentrate as he was leaving port, to give the controls and his surroundings his full attention.

 

The hum of the shower, and the grating irritation that was Dani, whistling, made sure that that wasn't going to happen this time out. The ship lurched horribly as it left the station, and dropped for several seconds before his hands unknotted enough to steady her and set her on course. He felt his ears burning, and hoped that no-one on Celestine Station had been watching too closely. It was hard enough to find work as things were; he didn't need word getting out that he might not be among a prospective client's best options.

 

"Was that supposed to happen?"

 

Kayc jolted, startled; Dani's bare feet had been soundless on the insulated decking. He glanced over his shoulder. "No," he said shortly. "My hand slipped, okay?"

 

"That's reassuring," Dani said drily. "If I didn't know I was meant to get back to my father, I'd start wondering if there was a plot."

 

"A plot?"

 

"M'm." The boy slipped into the room and settled himself cross-legged on the floor by Kayc's feet. "To get rid of me and replace me with, you know, a specially constructed android."

 

Bemused, Kayc let his eyes drift from the controls to stare down at the boy. "An … android?" He appeared to have developed a mild case of echolalia somewhere along the way.

 

Dani glanced up at him, grinning, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "With spy cameras, to get access to all the Family secrets!" He squirmed around until he was kneeling up, looking over the control panel. "Did this thing come with an owner's manual?"

 

"There isn't an instruction leaflet, if that's what you mean." Kayc leaned back in his chair, lifting his hands from the panel and spreading them wide. "If you think you can do any better, please, go ahead and try!"

 

"M'm," Dani said again, intent on the controls. "I've never flown interplanetary … never piloted, I mean," he corrected himself, pedantically.

 

"You said."

 

"It all looks pretty basic …" He glanced up at Kayc. "You really want me to try?"

 

"_No!_" Kayc said, hurriedly and as firmly as he knew how. "No, I do not. I've locked in the course, and we'll be fine."

 

"'Locked in the course'," Dani mimicked. "And that means, what, exactly? Do you actually have any idea what you're doing, Kayc?"

 

"No," Kayc said, nastily, "_Actually_, I don't." His attempt at Dani's accent fell far short; Dani only lifted an eyebrow, amused. "If you want to know, I blackmailed the money for this ship out of my ex-lover. I took a three-week pilot course, because that was all I could afford. I've been flying for six months, trying to find freedom and independence and a sense of worth and all the crap you think having your own ship's going to bring you, and all it's brought me is grief, and a mountain of debt, and a really far too friendly acquaintance with … with …"

 

"Scum," Dani supplied, helpfully. "Riffraff. The dregs of humanity. The rabble. The Great Unwashed. Hoi polloi …"

 

"All of those!" Kayc snapped, " – and I don't even know what that last one _was!_ My point is, this is _my_ life – my job – it's all I have, I'm doing the best I can, and I don't need _you_, when you could just've bought yourself Jump pilot implants and gone to the head of the class overnight – I don't need _you_, telling _me_ …"

 

"Kayc?" Dani laid a cautious hand on his arm. "I didn't mean any of that. I'm sorry – I was just … I didn't mean to be – "

 

"Smug? Superior? Condescending?"

 

"I didn't mean to be!" Dani repeated, sounding honestly distressed. "Really, I'm sorry. To tell the truth, I envy you. I wish I could be like you."

 

Kayc bit out a short laugh. It was unkind, but he couldn't help it. "Yeah, I just bet you do. But pretty much anything looks good from where you're standing now – right?"

 

"No …" Dani's fingers bunched in the fabric of Kayc's sleeve. "I didn't mean that, either. I meant, even before. Just … you know. Everyday. I know … I know your life can't have been easy. And I know that everyone's problems always look less than one's own. But you had a choice, at least: good, bad, whatever. You got to decide who you were going to be. You had the chance to change. I never had that."

 

"Yeah." Kayc couldn't seem to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "It must've sucked, being born into  a Family – getting everything you needed, having everything you wanted, education, and servants, and private flyers, and so much money you never even knew you had it  …"

 

"… my whole life pre-programmed from the moment I was born …" Dani glanced down, with an odd little smile. "Conceived, actually. I was really smart, you know, Kayc. You want to know why?"

 

"Very expensive tutors and an exclusive private school," Kayc guessed.

 

"I was made that way," Dani said softly. "I was bioengineered. My father contravened every ethics law there was to do it, but he got most of them overturned, anyway … He wanted a genius for a son, you see, and he wasn't prepared to leave it to chance and genetics." He looked back up then. "That's why the Coburgs took me, why they did _this_ and didn't just, you know, chop off an ear or whatever. It's kind of like their little joke …" He reached out his fingers to the control panel, and brushed them over a random selection of buttons and levers, toggles and switches, many of whose functions Kayc had yet to determine. "I could've learned," he murmured, wistfully. "I know I could've learned." He pushed himself away, up to his feet, and turned back toward the galley.

 

Kayc stayed where he was for a long time; replaying the conversation in his head, hating himself a little bit more with every repetition. He'd never been the kindest of men, he knew, nor the most thoughtful; his own life had been tough, he'd had to fend for himself from the beginning, and he had little time for those weaker than himself. Lisa had accused him of being heartless; she wasn't the only one. But it was never his intention to hurt; only, sometimes, his tongue ran faster than his brain, and then hurt happened, whether he meant it to or not. And Dani hadn't deserved his anger. He didn't deserve any of this. Finally, Kayc cast a last, anxious, glance over the flight settings, got up, and went after the boy.

 

Dani was standing just inside the doorway to the galley, head lowered, arms wrapped around his body. He was shivering again, looking utterly wretched, but when he heard Kayc's quiet footsteps he looked up and tried to smile. "I'm sorry." He seemed determined to apologise for everything, maybe even simply for being. "I just … I thought, maybe I could learn a new thing. Maybe it'd stick. And then maybe I could hold on to being _me_, if I could relearn the things I already know." He looked around at the galley walls, neat, compact, practical, soulless, and shook his head. "I don't know why I came in here. It's not inspiring … Or else," he went on, drifting away from Kayc, moving toward the back of the ship, "Or else, if I couldn't still be me, at least I could choose to be who I became. What I became. Not what they wanted me to be."

 

"Dani – " Kayc stepped into the sleeping alcove, pulled the cover from his bunk, moved to Dani's side and wrapped it around his shoulders. He hesitated – he'd never been much of a one for touches – then let his arm rest loosely around the boy. "Here. Look. You're scared, I know. I don't blame you, I'd be scared too, anyone would. But people are going to help you. Your father – how rich is he? Are you telling me he can't afford to have the process reversed, get you back again?"

 

Dani's dark eyes met his, and the sadness in them tore even at Kayc's scarred heart. "He doesn't like damaged goods, Kayc. I've disgraced him, let the Family down. He'll write me off as a failed enterprise."

 

"You don't know – "

 

"Yes. I do. I knew it from the moment the Coburgs took me. I knew it didn't matter what they did to me. I just wanted it to be _over_ …" He turned away. "I guess it will be, pretty soon. I just wish … I wish I didn't have to wait … I'm trying to be strong, and I'm trying to be brave, and I'm trying to be a man, but … I don't think I'm doing so well. If my father knew I'd cried … well. I know what he'd have to say. And, oh, Kayc, I'm so _tired_ …"

 

"And you're afraid to go to sleep," Kayc finished for him, his voice as gentle as he knew how to make it. He reached for Dani again, put his arm around his shoulders; the boy wasn't cold, he realised now, but trembling with exhaustion. "Come on." He steered them both toward the bunk; pushed Dani down to sit on the edge, lifted his feet and settled him against the pillow, pulling the cover back down and around him. "This isn't helping. I'll stay with you. And I'll be here when you wake up. Whatever you've forgotten, I'll remember it for you. I'll help you, Dani. You don't have to do this alone."

 

The ghost of a smile lit the boy's pinched, grey face, and he lifted a heavy hand to touch Kayc's. "You'll help me?"

 

"I will," Kayc promised.

 

"That's nice …" It was little more than a drowsy mumble; then Dani fought off sleep a moment longer, lifted his head, and asked, "Why?"

 

"Why will I help you?" Kayc closed his fingers around Dani's. "Because somebody has to, Dani. We're all alone out here, the two of us – all alone in the world, now. This is all I have and you – you don't even have that much. Who's going to help us, if we can't even help one another?"

 

***

 

Once he finally gave up the struggle to stay awake, Dani slept for hours; so, literally, like the dead that Kayc more than once found himself hovering over him, checking anxiously for the sound of breathing. Quiet though he was, it was oddly disconcerting to have another person on board. Kayc was used to being alone on the ship – and in any case, ordinarily he would've gone into FTL and done the trip in half the time, or less. But with the need to maintain atmosphere aboard, that was out of the question. He twitched about the ship for a while, unable to settle: checked the hold, as if there were any way that the cargo could have shifted itself about; opened and closed all the cabinets in the galley, trying to decide if he were hungry, deciding first that yes, he was and then no, he wasn't, and he didn't know what to cook anyway; flung himself down in the pilot's chair and flipped through the entertainment console, looking for, well, for entertainment – music, talk, a drama, _anything_. Nothing was even amusing, or, in fact, bearable, let alone entertaining as advertised. Finally he pulled down one of the half-dozen texts he'd downloaded from the central library last time he'd passed by a terminal, and tried to read. Books and reading – reading for pleasure – were still pretty much a novelty to Kayc; it simply hadn't been a part of the culture he'd known, growing up. He'd never missed it but then, he'd never known it was there to be missed. He was only now beginning to realise that there were thousands of years and a hundred civilisations' worth of words and thoughts and ideas that had been within his grasp all the time, if only he'd known. The problem now was knowing where to start.

 

But today, even the classic Old Earth drama he'd chosen couldn't hold his attention. His eyes were on the words, but his mind was skittering about from one topic to another: reliving the scene on Celestine, thinking about the Families and their traditions and their stranglehold on the system, recalling his conversation with Dani, everything about Dani … his bare feet, cold and vulnerable-looking on the hard metal of the station concourse, the bruises on his arms and face, the tiny red marks on his temples; his dark hair, clipped so short that the fragile line of his skull was clearly visible; his eyes, so huge and trusting … and why? What evidence had he that Kayc was to be trusted? How, in the light of all that had happened to him, how had Dani remained so open, so innocent?

 

Kayc reminded himself that what he'd met was not, after all, who Dani had been; Scion Rydell had probably been no better than any other Family member. Those people were all, by and large, the same: all pretty much, in human and, indeed, humane terms, worthless. He'd known a few exceptions – well: technically, one exception, but that did mean there might be more – but on the whole, he wasn't inclined to give the class the benefit of the doubt.

 

There. There was sound coming from the alcove. He marked his page, pretending to himself that he hadn't just read the same line five times over and not registered it at all, and turned off the reader, got up and headed to the back of the ship.

 

Dani was awake, sitting huddled in the crook of the bedhead and the wall, his knees tucked against his body and his arms around himself. _Defensive_, Kayc thought; he couldn't blame him. He probably had no idea where he was, or what was happening. Well: Kayc had promised to help him remember.

 

"Dani?" he said, and the boy's face turned to him without recognition, vacant, unfocused. Kayc sighed. _Yes_. It was as he'd feared. He moved forward slowly, holding his hands open, away from his sides, as unthreatening as he could make himself. Even so, Dani tensed, and tried to get further away, pushing himself against the bulkhead so hard that Kayc was afraid he'd injure himself. "Dani, it's okay. You're safe. I'm Kayc. I'm your – " He hesitated. _Your – what?_ "I'm your friend," he finished; he personally didn't have much faith in friendship, but, Lady knew, Dani could do with all the support he could get. "This is my ship. We're going home to your father's estate, back to Halcyon."

 

He wasn't getting through; Dani only stared at him, or past him, or through him, then suddenly made a little, incoherent noise, part sob, part wordless protest, and turned away, hiding his face in his arms. Kayc found himself sighing again. Okay. So it was worse than he'd thought; they were going to have to build from the ground upwards. Well, he could do that. It wasn't as if either of them was going anywhere for a while.

 

"_Dani_," he said, louder than he'd meant to, reached across the bunk and took hold of Dani's shoulder to try to pull him around. "Listen! I'm here to help you, okay? You want to work with me a bit, here?"

 

Dani turned then, and looked up into his eyes. And, looking back, Kayc saw nothing: no awareness, no understanding. Dani was gone. And this time there would be no returning.

 

The realisation seemed to sap the strength from him; he let himself drop heavily to the bunk, ignoring Dani's tiny squeak of fear, slumping forward, dropping his head into his hands. He'd thought … he'd thought they'd had a chance; that there was something left that could be saved. But it was lost, all vanished, all wasted. And for what? Revenge – oh, how he knew the Families – revenge would have been only a part of it. They'd done this because they _could_.

 

Anger stirred in him: the anger he had felt from the start, that one thinking, feeling human being could destroy another's humanity like this. But more than that, he realised that what he was feeling was _loss_ – as though something precious to him had been taken. Which was ridiculous. He'd known the boy for only an hour or so, spoken maybe a hundred words to him. How could he miss him, when he'd never even known him?

 

Well. It was what it was, and now he had to deal with it. They still had a Jump to negotiate, and then another day before they reached Halcyon and he could wash his hands of the problem for good and all and, he hoped, forget it and move on. And Dani couldn't stay where he was all that time. Just for one thing, at some point, Kayc himself was going to want to get some sleep. He gathered himself together, and turned back to Dani, holding out his hand. "Come on. Let's get you out of here. I bet you're hungry, huh?"

 

There was no response, only the same uncomprehending, terrified stare. He bit down on his frustration and tried again. "Dani." He edged across the bed until they were face to face. Dani watched him warily, but stayed where he was – which Kayc took as a positive sign, although there wasn't really anywhere else he could have gone. "That's you – remember? Dani?"

 

He wasn't getting through. He had no idea how to do this; the closest thing in his experience was a boy in his school who'd overdosed on bliss in the third year. He'd been a lot like this – frightened to the point of paranoia, almost catatonic. But then he'd gone into screaming fits, his heart had stopped and he'd died before the medics could get there. Which was not a comforting analogy, not by any manner of means.

 

Whatever he did, it was likely to be the wrong thing. He might as well do nothing. He wouldn't be wanting his bunk for a few hours anyway; Dani could stay there till then. And if Kayc wasn't in the same room with him, he wouldn't have to look at the fear in his face, or hear his small, sobbing breaths. He wouldn't have to care. He certainly wouldn't have to feel this nebulous and, surely, unjustified sense of guilt, as though he'd been called and found wanting.

 

He moved away, not looking back, and made for the galley. Now he came to think of it, he really was hungry after all. He started going through the cabinets again; maybe he'd missed something last time around. Mostly there seemed to be packets of the generic, all-purpose dried stew that every space station carried and served and sold in bulk. Dissecting that was always a rewarding exercise. There were pulses in it, he knew that much. And something red, that might once have been tomato. Or carrot; sometimes it was more orange than red. (He'd thrown up enough of the stuff to be more than familiar with its contents, both coming and going.) The rest of it was 'protein', a vague, catch-all term that, Kayc suspected, defied analysis.

 

He turned to get water, and actually, literally, jumped so hard that his feet left the floor. "_Lady!_"

 

Dani had left the sanctuary of the bunk to drift noiselessly after him; he was standing just inside the door, pressed sidelong against the frame, gripping its edge with both hands. Kayc shook himself. "Dani, if you're going to keep doing that, I'm going to have to hang a bell round your neck! Seriously …" He put the packet down and came around to face the boy who, he was relieved to see, only shrank from him the merest fraction. "By my reckoning, you've scared me out of ten years already today. And those were good years, Dani, I could've used those years. They would've been rich, those years, they would've been full – I was going to retire to a little place in the country, with my grandchildren round my knee … do you understand me?" The smallest of smiles had crooked Dani's mouth; Kayc moved slightly closer and traced the smile with his finger, smiling himself when Dani permitted the contact and didn't shy away. "You don't, do you? You just like the sound of my voice. _Comforting_, you said." He let out another sigh – it seemed to him that he'd used his lifetime allotment of sighs this day alone. "Well. I'm taking this as progress. If you're not actually freaking out and trying to crawl up the walls, I'll settle for that … you hungry?" He rolled his eyes. "Why am I even asking? What're you going to say?" He patted Dani's arm. "You stay there, okay? Good boy. I'll make some food, and if you're hungry, you can eat. The way I see it," he continued, going back to the cabinets, "you pretty much have to be. I don't imagine they took much thought to you and your comfort, back on Celestine – did they?" He couldn't seem to shake the habit of trying to include Dani in the conversation. Maybe a part of him was still hoping that eventually there'd be a reply.

 

He made up the stew, poured it into two bowls and brought one over to Dani. "Here." He held up a spoonful. "Eat." He held the spoon against Dani's lips until they parted, then tipped the food inside quickly; watched in horror the expression of surprise and disgust that dawned on Dani's face, and was only just quick enough to clap his hand over Dani's mouth in time to stop him spitting the food straight out again. "No, you don't! You do, and you clean it up. Now, swallow!" As if Dani could understand him. He steered him across to the basin, and made him lean over the bowl. "Okay, _now_ spit it out …" He hadn't really needed to say that; Dani had already done so involuntarily, and was still gagging and spitting. Kayc leaned back against the counter. He remembered Dani, only a few hours before, jokingly promising to throw up on Kayc after his mind had gone. The memory hurt, and the hurt, unreasonably, made him angry. "Wonderful! Everything else he forgets, but he still knows crap food when he tastes it. If you remembered what your favourite restaurant was, " he snapped at the boy, "we could send out a special order for you." He threw up his hands. "Forget it! Starve, for all I care. When you're hungry enough, you won't even notice _what_ you're eating – you'll just be glad to have it. And take it from me, I know!" He sat down at the table, pulled the other bowl toward him and started to eat. In all fairness, it really was pretty disgusting. You got used to it. After a moment, he heard Dani move; he came round the table and stood, watching, big-eyed. It was weirdly offputting; Kayc ignored it as best he could. Which wasn't much.

 

"Okay," he sighed, finally, "let's see what else we can find for you … it's all made out of the same crap, though, it just comes in different shapes …"

 

He went through and rejected almost every item in the store cupboard, finally heated some frites. All children ate frites, and Dani seemed to fit that category. "Here." He picked one off the plate, remembered in time that it'd be hot and snapped it in half. "Open!" He held it out; after a moment of suspicious hesitation, Dani took it. Chewed, while Kayc watched him anxiously. And, thank the Lady, swallowed.

 

With a very little prompting, and a sachet of salad cream that Kayc unearthed from who-knew-where, Dani managed to finish off the entire plate by himself. Then Kayc decided to forestall possible disaster and take him to the bathroom. He devoutly hoped that Dani was going to retain all this information, because there was no way he was repeating _that_ experience. That just left the slight problem of what to do with him now.

 

"I need to check our course, okay?" Kayc was still doing the talking-out-loud thing. "Make sure we're where we're supposed to be, make sure we're making time. Can you stay here?" He tried to steer Dani back toward the bunk. Dani stood stone still, just looking blankly at him. Kayc tried very hard _not_ to sigh. "Okay. You can sit in the cabin, if you're quiet …"

 

But Dani wouldn't be quiet; he wanted attention. He twitched, and fidgeted, and fussed, bumping against Kayc's legs and tugging at his sleeve, and reaching up curious, potentially hazardous, fingers to the console. Kayc said "Hush, now, Dani!" and "Be still, Dani!" and "Dani, _please!_" until eventually his patience snapped and before he realised what he was doing he found himself storming out of his chair, yanking Dani up by the arm and dragging him to his feet. He marched him back to the alcove, ignoring the boy's struggles and the shocked look on his face, and all but threw him down on the bunk. "That's enough! Now, _stay_ there!"

 

White-faced, Dani surged straight back up and shoved Kayc in the chest, pushing him away. Kayc had forgotten how strong he was, and was caught off-balance, staggering back and banging into the wall. Furious, he lunged forward and grabbed Dani's shoulders. "You little fuck, don't you _ever_ do that again!" He let go his hold just in time to catch Dani's balled fists as they flailed at him. "I said, _no!_ Do you want me to hurt you? 'Cause I can, and I will, if you don't behave." Dani was twisting and writhing in his hold, trying to wrench his hands away, his whole body jerking with effort; it was all Kayc could do to hold him, and then it was more, and Dani had broken away from him. Unthinking, Kayc threw himself after him, hitting him in the small of the back with his own shoulder and sending them both crashing to the deck. Dani started trying to scrabble away, but Kayc managed to get above him and pulled him onto his back, straddling him, pinning down his wrists. "_Stop it!_ Dani, _stop!_"

 

Abruptly, Dani stopped fighting and lay still for a moment, panting. Then he lifted his head, his eyes holding Kayc's, and suddenly, deliberately, slammed it back against the floor. Then again. And again, while Kayc tried despairingly to work out how he could simultaneously keep him still and stop him from hurting himself. Finally he let go of Dani's wrists, and used the moment of surprise to flip the boy over onto his stomach and lie along his back. Which, a small part of him noted wryly, was oddly comfortable; it was a shame they couldn't have done this under happier circumstances.

 

"Dani," he said, breathlessly, into the boy's ear. "Dani! Stop it. Stop it now. I need to fly this ship, and you need to keep out of my way." He pushed himself up on his arms and held himself a little away, giving Dani the chance to move. Dani twisted around under him and sank his teeth into his arm. Kayc yelled, in pain and shock, and, in pure reflex, brought his hand around and smacked Dani across the face. Dani found his voice at last then. He screamed, and he carried on screaming all the time Kayc was hauling him off the floor, dragging him over to the cargo hold, down the ramp and across to the enclosed hutch that he presumed had been meant for hauling livestock. He'd never had occasion to use it, not until now. Dani was still screaming as Kayc clanged the grille shut behind himself and keyed the lock; still screaming as Kayc turned away, stamped back up the ramp, and closed the cargo door.

 

The ship was silent again, then.

 

***

 

Now that things were peaceful, Kayc went back to his interrupted status checks. Central Service Core Jump station was starting to register on the transcom; Kayc felt the familiar nervous flutter start up in his stomach and his throat. Time to get back into pilot mode and ready himself for docking. A nice, easy, efficient, smooth docking, with no foul-ups, that'd go right at his first attempt. He brought up the station specs on his viewscreen and leaned in as close as he could, tracing the route and talking himself through the procedures. He could do it; it was just a matter of confidence. Confidence, and steady hands. His hands, he noted dispassionately, were anything else but that. He'd just have to wing it and hope for the best.

 

He joined the queue of ships waiting for Customs clearance and Jump authority, and turned the ship to cruise mode. Nothing to do now but wait. And wait. And wait … Like all Jump stations, CSC was Family-owned and run, as well as being the only Jump point in this sector; it didn't have to care too much about its clients' considerations.

 

"Kayc? Kayc!"

 

He heard his name, and startled awake. A woman was laughing at him. Great.

 

"Kayc, were you sleeping on the job?"

 

He sat up, embarrassed. "Oh, hey, Danaan – you're on this rota?"

 

"I saw you were scheduled to come through, so I thought I'd hang around and say hello, take you through Jump."

 

That made him smile; it was kind of her. He knew she hated scut work, and was in a position never to have to do it unless she chose. The fact that she'd choose to do it for him sent a certain warmth, unfamiliar but welcome, through him.

 

"Tell me you didn't fly all the way here in your sleep?" she was saying now, still laughing at him.

 

"I was resting my eyes," he said with dignity. "I think my viewscreen needs a tune-up. Or something."

 

"We'll look at it," she said, and her minuscule on-screen image smiled. "You all set to dock?"

 

He groaned. It was safe to do that around Danaan. "Ready as I'll ever be."

 

"We'll catch you!" She was still smiling; it warmed him, gave him confidence. Besides, he really hated to fuck up in front of Danaan. He owed her so much … if not for her, he wouldn't be here now at all, would never have made it off his homeworld, never have made himself this new life.

 

"See you in a few," he said, and silenced the com, the better to concentrate. He re-checked the coordinates, corrected his angle, turned 'cruise' to 'forward slow', and started his descent. If he was holding his breath, there was no-one to see, and moments later he was rewarded by the dull 'clunk!' of a successful dock. First time. He lay back in his seat and breathed out a sigh of relief, then reached forward again to extend the docking tunnel, adjust the ship's pressure and open the airlock.

 

Danaan was waiting for him in the bay, tiny, golden and perfect as ever, like the ancient goddess she claimed she had been named for. Kayc wouldn't know; that sort of knowledge wasn't freely available to his kind, not the way it was in her charmed circle. Danaan had been his first contact ever with the Families: she'd been Lisa's schoolfriend, but from quite another mould than Lisa. Lisa, merely rich and not Family, had been bored by her life of privilege, had found her thrills slumming in the back streets and sleeping with a factory kid, by pretending to share his dreams, and his friends' dreams of revolution, of a new age of freedom and equality for all. But it had been Danaan who had slipped away from her father's estate to warn Kayc, the night that the Families' security squads had taken to the streets and cleaned out the insurgents so thoroughly that they would never rise again; Danaan who had saved his life, while Lisa had fled back to the security of the home she had affected to despise and hidden behind her father's name. And it was Danaan who'd gone to Lisa and told her that, unless she paid Kayc to vanish, and vanish fast, then every Family on every planet in all the systems would know all about her indiscretion, and her prospects for marriage and advancement would be destroyed forever.

 

He owed a lot to Danaan. She was the one, too, who had found him the ship, and a training opportunity; he suspected she'd paid for some of it herself, but would never ask her, not until he was in a position to pay her back. And the business he now found himself plying, that was her idea too. A flight academy graduate herself, she knew all there was to know about life between the worlds; she knew what opportunities were available, and had nudged him or, to be more accurate, kicked him, in the right direction. And now, here they were.

 

It really wasn't her fault that he wasn't better at it. Without her influence, he suspected that his weak eyes would have disqualified him from any sort of pilot training; he'd've been lucky to have ended up as a third-class space tech. But he'd made it this far. He could keep on faking it until, one day, he found out he could actually do it.

 

Or, of course, crash and burn in some hideous, epic disaster that would live on long after him and become the stuff of legends. Which, he occasionally had to admit to himself, was, on the whole, more likely.

 

"Kayc!" Danaan said. She seemed, as ever, genuinely happy to see him, a thing Kayc had never quite been able to understand. She came forward to meet him, lifted her hands to his shoulders and stretched up to kiss his jawline. "You are _so_ late – I thought you'd be here last night. It's just a routine run to Nuestro Salvador – right? You've got some stuff for Izak? That's what I had logged for you."

 

"It _was_," he said, somewhat ruefully. "Celestine came up with a change of plans for me. I did wav it forward – don't you have the update?"

 

"I have better things to do with my time than to monitor your every movement," she told him. "Plus, I could hire people to do that."

 

"That'd be funnier if it wasn't actually true."

 

She grinned up at him. "Oh, I think it's still pretty funny! So, you stopped at Celestine, huh? Kayc, what've I told you?"

 

"Don't-stop-at-Celestine," he recited dutifully. "Trust me, if I'd've had a choice, I'd've gone anyplace else." Lady; how he wished he _had_ gone someplace else. Dani would have ended up as some other poor sap's problem, and how much grief would _that_ have saved him? "But, you know – money's tight, and they're – "

 

" – crooks," she supplied.

 

"M'm. I was going to say 'cheap', but 'crooks' does seem to be the popular opinion."

 

She was looking at him worriedly. "Things aren't going so well, huh? Is there anything I can do?"

 

"No!" He'd said it far too quickly, and probably offended her grievously. "No," he said again, hoping it sounded somewhat less curt this time, "no, you've already done too much, Danaan – I already owe you … well. You know. It's okay, I get by." He took her hand, squeezed it briefly, let it go. "Really," he assured her. "It's still early days. As long as the jobs keep coming in, I'll be fine."

 

Her eyes held him a moment longer, hard and appraising; she was Family, after all, and business was in her blood. She didn't appear overwhelmingly convinced, but eventually she said, "Well, if you say so," and turned away, moving toward the ship. "But don't you ever let yourself get in over your head, Kayc. If you have a problem, a real problem, you let me know. I'm not letting anything happen to you, not while I can help it."

 

"A problem?" Kayc nearly laughed out loud. "Funny you should say that …"

 

She glanced back over her shoulder as she passed through the tunnel, eyebrows raised in question. "Oh? How so?"

 

"Because," Kayc said, and followed her aboard, "that little extra job Celestine landed me with …?"

 

"Problem?" she asked, brightly, and dropped into the pilot's chair, leaning forward to check the controls.

 

"_Problem!_" Kayc confirmed. The hard edge to his voice made her turn back and gaze at him, concerned.

 

"Kayc, just how bad is this thing? Celestine's always been small-time – I wouldn't've thought they could've come up with anything you couldn't deal with �' ?"

 

"It's been dealt with," he said grimly, "but it hasn't gone away. And I think it's going to come back and bite me." His hand was resting on the cargo hold seal; he jerked his head toward the hatch. "You'd better come and see for yourself."

 

Danaan gave a little, uncertain, laugh. "Kayc, what in the nine hells – what can you have done that's so bad? _You_, of all people?" But she got up and followed him, through the hatch; down the ramp. Stopped dead at the foot of the ramp, her hand to her mouth to stifle her involuntary scream. "Oh – sweet – Lady!_ You_ had him!" Then she was running forward to kneel by the enclosure, her fingers reaching through the wire. "Dani – Dani, sweetheart, can you hear me? Dani, are you all right?" She swung back toward Kayc, her eyes blazing. "Kayc, how could you? How could you do this to him?!"

 

Kayc found himself backing away, holding up his hands defensively. "No, wait, wait just a moment! _I_ didn't do anything – he was pretty banged up when I got him and the rest he mostly did to himself. He was fighting me, and I couldn't calm him down, and I had to fly the ship – I didn't know what to do, this was the only place I could think of to put him."

 

"In a _cage?_" Her eyes blazed her fury. "Didn't you think he'd already been through enough?"

 

He shouted back at her. "Don't make me out to be the bad guy! I got him dumped on me – I tried to take care of him – I'm _still_ trying to take care of him, I'm doing what I was told, I'm taking him back to his Family – "

 

"Get him out of there," Danaan said tightly. "Get him out _now_, and show me he isn't hurt, and maybe we can still be friends, Kayc."

 

"He was violent – "

 

"Yeah, sure he was!"

 

"Danaan, he _bit_ me!" He held out his arm to show her, but she waved him away.

 

"Right. Dani, House Rydell – the sweetest kid I ever knew – I've known him since he was born, he's never so much as said an unkind word, Kayc, let alone _attacked_ anyone!"

 

"Well, that was before, wasn't it?" Then the oddity of the conversation registered, and he stared at her. "You knew him?"

 

"I _know_ him. Of course I know him, Kayc, he's Family!"

 

"And … you knew something had happened to him …?"

 

She snorted impatiently. "The whole system knows, Kayc. The Coburgs transmitted everything they did to him on a broadlink. We all had to just sit there and … and watch … will you open that door?!"

 

He shook himself. _They broadcast it? _"I'm sorry." His fingers slipped on the lock, fumbling; he cursed, softly, profoundly aware of two sets of eyes fixed on him. Finally the damned thing freed itself, and he swung open the grille. Danaan almost bowled him over as she pushed past him, hurrying to kneel beside Dani and take his hands, letting out a hiss of distress at the mess they were in. "Dani? Honey, it's Danaan. Danaan, House Whitaker … Dani, don't you remember me …?"

 

"He doesn't remember anything, Danaan," Kayc said behind her, too harshly. "Maybe you missed the point of the message."

 

Dani's face had turned toward the sound of Danaan's voice, but registered nothing, his eyes dull and blank as they had been when he had first woken. "Dani …?" she said again, hopelessly.

 

"He won't talk to you," Kayc murmured. "He doesn't say anything, now."

 

Danaan let the boy's hands drop and stood, turning away hastily. "I thought … I thought he might still know me … I've known him since he was born!" she repeated, and her voice shattered, tears choking her words. Kayc stood back, letting her cry; he had before never seen her so unguarded. Then his head turned toward a movement in his peripheral vision. Dani was standing, unsteady; crossing over to him. Reaching up to lay a cautious hand to his sleeve and, when Kayc allowed the touch, leaning forward, laying his face, blotched and swollen and filthy with tears and grime and snot, against Kayc's shoulder; clinging to him tightly. Kayc found his own arms going automatically around the boy; he rested his cheek against the soft stubble of dark hair, and he thought, _I've known him a day, and I think I would kill to protect him._

 

How had he fallen so hard, so quickly, so easily? How had Dani crept silently past his guard, past all his defences, and found his way into Kayc's heart?

 

He couldn't explain it. But so it was.

 

***

 

"They transferred him through Celestine?" Her moment's weakness forgotten, Danaan was once again focusing on practicalities. She glanced down at Kayc's flightlog where it lay in her lap, and nodded decisively. "Very well, then. As of today, Celestine loses all business from House Whitaker. And from all the other Families, if I have anything to say in the matter. They're useful enough, as long as they stay in line, but if they think they can cross _us_, they can think again, and be thankful we've left them the ability to think, while they're about it!"

 

"Shhh …" Kayc said to Dani, who had stirred uneasily and made a small sound of distress at the hard voice. "It's okay, she's not mad at you … I'm nearly done," he added, in the same calm, soothing tone. He was in the bathroom with Dani, both of them sitting on the floor while he swabbed the blood away from Dani's hands, torn where he had clawed at the wire enclosing him, and rubbed salve into the shallow cuts. "Danaan …" he said, pitching his voice a little louder, to carry across the cabin. He spoke slowly, surprising himself; he was remembering details that he'd barely registered at the time: the security guard's frayed and patched uniform, the harbourmaster's thinning grey hair and the liver spots on his hands; the pinched, anxious, hungry expressions on both their faces, faces that were strange to him and yet, somehow, familiar: he'd grown up among hundreds just like them. "Danaan, don't do that. Please? They're … they're just working stiffs, trying to get by, grabbing a few extra bucks when they get the chance. Don't make them pay for this. And anyway," he added, rising to his feet and helping Dani up after him, passing back through into the cabin, "Do you think they had a choice? When House Coburg came to them, do you think they had any option at all of saying no?"

 

Danaan had frozen, her finger poised above her touchpad; she was staring at him as though at a perfect stranger. "You … you never used to be so forgiving, Kayc."

 

He managed a tight smile. "Maybe I'm growing."

 

"Yeah," she said, sounding vaguely dazed. "Maybe that's it." She let the pad drop, and smiled at Dani. "All better?"

 

"He's not a _child_, Danaan!" Kayc said irritably, choosing to overlook the fact that he'd been treating Dani in exactly the same way.

 

"I know what he is!" she said angrily. "Since you were so understanding toward the good people on Celestine, maybe you could spare a moment of your new-found empathy to try to imagine how _I'm_ feeling – what it's like for me to see one of my dearest friends – oh, _fuck_ it!" Her voice was starting to thread again. "Let's just get this damned hop over with, and we can talk about it on the other side." She reached into the console for the implant connections and wired herself in. "Breathe deep," she advised, and flicked on the Jump drive. Kayc looked at Dani; Jump could be nauseating and disorientating, even when you expected it.

 

"Hold on," he told the boy, and, almost without thought, pulled him against his own chest for balance. "I've got you."

 

They Jumped.  Nothing moved; everything moved. Space unfolded all around them, and in one endless, sickening moment, up was dark and out was down and light was in and everything was empty and the emptiness shattered into a million impossible fragments …

 

And then out. And the world righted itself once again.

 

Kayc just got Dani back to the bathroom in time.

 

***

 

Danaan left them at Stella Solus; reluctantly. Kayc feared for a while he was going to have to throw her off the ship physically.

 

"Maybe I should come with you to Halcyon," she was saying, as she moved, inch by slow inch, along the docking tunnel. "You're not the most tactful guy in the system when it comes to the Families … or ever, really … and House Rydell's one of the oldest, Jey's pretty hidebound …"

 

"That's Dani's father?" She nodded. "You're on first-name terms with him?"

 

"Well …" she hedged, "not to his face. If it was just Hana, that's Dani's mother, I wouldn't worry … but one word from you out of place, and Jey could make things really difficult for you."

 

"Well," Kayc said drily, "that'd be a change.

 

"Kayc – "

 

"No, really, Danaan, tell me some more about what it'd be like if my life was difficult?"

 

She flung up her hands. "This! This is what I mean! If you start carrying on like this in front of Sieur Rydell, he's not going to laugh."

 

"Oh, you think he's going to be laughing? When he sees Dani, the way he is now?"

 

She stopped walking and reached out to him. "Kayc. All I'm saying is, please don't make things any worse than they have to be. You can think whatever you like, but at least act like – "

 

"Like a good little peon?"

 

"If you want to put it that way, yes." She exhaled heavily. "I should come with you."

 

"Because the ship's not cramped enough with two people," Kayc said sarcastically.

 

"I could commandeer something from Solus – something a bit more comfortable."

 

"I'm not leaving my ship."

 

"No." Danaan sighed again. "I didn't imagine you would. At least go FTL the rest of the way and get it over with. The longer you have to brood about this, the worse you're going to be." She looked up at him, sidelong. "You've got quite fond of Dani – haven't you?"

 

Kayc hunched a shoulder, feigning indifference. "I never really got the chance to know him. What I saw seemed likeable enough. For Family." Then his curiosity got the better of him. "You were really close, you and he? Before, I mean?"

 

She nodded, and flushed faintly pink. "I used to dress him up in my dolls' clothes," she admitted. "He was the most adorable baby."

 

Kayc just looked at her for a moment. Then he shook his head slowly. "I swear, I don't know how any of you people ever manages to turn out normal. I suppose you don't. We can't go FTL," he went on, getting back to the point. "I've only got the one suit."

 

"Well, that's pretty stupid, "Danaan said. "You really ought to keep an auxiliary suit aboard. Any idiot would know that."

 

Kayc glared at her. "I love it when you call me stupid. Am I in trouble?"

 

"You would be, if it was anyone but me! No, it's not regs – it's just common sense. I'll pick you up a spare from the station – there's a stack of them in lost property, just for one."

 

"You'll check it?" he asked, before he could stop himself, and she gave him a withering stare.

 

"No, Kayc, I was going to supply you with a faulty suit deliberately. Nothing would give me greater joy than to see you turn blue and implode." She smacked him on the arm. "After all the trouble I went to to save your pitiful, worthless ass!"

 

"An ass you're not even interested in," he mourned. This, at least, was familiar territory.

 

She recognised her cue. "Yes, well, Lisa couldn't keep her mouth shut – "

 

"I remember. " He smirked, deliberately provoking. "And she knew how to use it, too."

 

She smacked him again. "You're disgusting! And, from what Lisa said, _so_ not worth the effort of getting undressed."

 

This time his smile was reminiscent. "Yeah. Sometimes she didn't bother. But that was just because she was in a hurry." He rubbed his arm. "And, by the way – _ow!_"

 

***

 

Dani had fallen asleep again after the Jump; Kayc stopped by the alcove as he reboarded, to check on him. Really, just to have the excuse to look at him. Danaan had been right. Or almost right: _fond_ fell far short. He turned himself away, shaking his head. She'd been right about something else, too. The sooner this trip was over, the better it would be. Dani would be back with his Family, where he belonged, and out of Kayc's life, where he most certainly didn't.

 

Launch completed and course set, Kayc once again found himself at a loss. All he really wanted to do was sleep; he hadn't had much of a chance to do so recently. But Dani was taking up the bunk.

 

On the other hand: it was a big enough bunk – just – for two. Kayc had heard himself described as skinny often enough to know it must be true. And Dani had curled up into a tight, protective ball, instinctively making himself as small and as near to invisible as possible. If Kayc could just shove him over a little, he was sure the boy wouldn't mind sharing. So long as he didn't wake up traumatised and terrified, as he had before.

 

Kayc was dreaming: he was back on his homeworld, back with Lisa. But this was a Lisa he'd never known. Real-world Lisa had been aloof and distant, acting as though she were doing him a favour by fucking him; this Lisa was warm and passionate, pliant in his arms, her mouth hungry on his, then sliding away to his throat, hands at the seal of his collar, tearing it open, stroking down his chest to his belly, ripping aside the seal that last extra couple of inches to give her free access to –

 

_"Lady!"_ He wasn't dreaming. And this wasn't Lisa.

 

"Dani," he said. His voice was rough; he coughed, to loosen it. "Dani, what're you doing?"

 

Dani drew back and looked up at him, his eyes very bright. Then he smiled dazzlingly. "Silly. You _know_ what I'm doing. I'm giving you a – "

 

"Yes," Kayc said hastily, "I know that. I mean – why – how �' ?" He blinked. "And … you're …" He wasn't sure what the word was. "You're – awake – "

 

"I'm dreaming I'm a butterfly," Dani said, which explained nothing at all. He slid upwards, fitting himself alongside Kayc again, chest to chest, arms and legs twined tightly about the other man. "And butterflies don't answer questions."

 

"I'm not sure they do _this_, either." Kayc backed away, trying to untangle himself. "Dani – " He couldn't quite believe he was saying this. "Dani, sweetheart – " (and where had _that_ come from?) " - I don't know if this is such a good idea - "

 

Dani only looked puzzled. "You want it," he said simply. "You want me. You're lonely, and it's been a very long time, and she hurt you so badly …"

 

"Who - ? How do you know …?"

 

"… and you were kind to me, so kind, so I should give you something, too."

 

"Dani." Kayc had to clear his throat again. "None of those is a good reason to sleep with somebody."

 

Dani's mouth curled up at the corners. "Didn't want to _sleep_, Kayc!"

 

Kayc huffed out a breath. "You know what I – " Then he stopped, and looked at the boy: really looked. "No," he said slowly, "you don't know. Do you? All right. Listen. Dani. I do want you. You're beautiful, and I like you very much, and I love the way touching you makes me feel. But you shouldn't have sex because you're sorry for a person, or out of gratitude. And I don't think you really know what you're doing."

 

Hurt touched Dani's eyes. "I wasn't good?"

 

"I didn't mean – "

 

"I could learn," Dani said, his voice husky. "You'd teach me. I could learn to be good for you, Kayc."

 

"Dani – _no_ – I meant, you're not – you don't understand … I just … look, Dani, I just don't think we should do this. I think it's not a good idea."

 

The smile had faded; Dani looked almost ready to cry, now. "Why not?" he demanded. "I'd like it. You'd like it. And I know you want to. You wanted to yesterday, when you hit me."

 

"Yes," Kayc admitted, "yes, I did." Had Dani still been there, been present and conscious inside his mind all that time, aware but unable to communicate? Small wonder, then, if he'd been frustrated and angry. "But it would have been wrong. And it would be wrong now. And, incidentally," he added, "you hit me first!" He took Dani's wounded expression as his cue to scramble off  the bunk and move as far away as the alcove would allow, giving himself time to catch his breath and recover his thoughts. _The overlay personality_, he thought, _the time bomb. This is what it is._ It was still Dani; but not as he had been. He had thought the boy he had first met had been vulnerable; compared to Dani now, he had been armour-plated. This Dani had no defences at all. No defences, no barriers. And, apparently, no inhibitions.

 

"Dani," he said, finally. "Listen. I do want you. Don't ever doubt that. But I want you so much – if I let myself love you, I don't think I could ever bear to let you go again. And I have to do that, Dani. I have to take you back to your father. Those are my orders, and I can't fight the Families." He closed his eyes and clenched his fists, the nails driving into his hands. "So let's – let's just forget about it. Okay? It's impossible, and we have to accept that – " He opened his eyes again, and wished he hadn't. "Oh, for the Lady's sake, will you stop looking at me like that! I didn't kill your favourite puppy, Dani, I just said _no_, and no to something you don't even know you want!"

 

"You don't know what I know," Dani whispered, and looked up at him slantwise. "No-one knows. What they put in my mind. What they took out. Even I don't know, so how can you?"

 

Kayc went to him, crouching down by the bed, reaching out his hands. After a moment, Dani reached back to him. "Tell me," he said gently, but Dani shook his head.

 

"I can't … I don't know enough words … it's shapes and colours and smells and tastes, and they're all mixed up, and I don't know what any of them mean …" His eyes met Kayc's. "It's like Jump. All the time. In my head. But I can learn. I'll mend it. I know I can. I _will_."

 

Kayc tightened his fingers. "I know you will, sweetheart. You can do whatever you want to do. I thought you were gone forever, but you came back. I believe you can do anything." He took his hands away, and got to his feet. "Now. You hungry?" He turned and headed for the galley. A moment later he heard the slap of bare feet hitting the floor, and knew Dani was behind him.

 

"I'm hungry," Dani admitted. He thought about it for a moment, then observed, "Actually, I think I'm always hungry. But I'm not eating that stew stuff," he added, warningly. There was a world of loathing in his voice when he said _stuff_.

 

Kayc cast his eyes to an imaginary heaven. "Of course not," he snapped. "And what _would_ Sieur like?"

 

Dani's mouth quirked. "This," he said softly. And he stepped up to Kayc and kissed him: at first just a dry brush of his lips to the corner of Kayc's mouth, that seemed almost accidental; then his mouth on Kayc's, pressing, soft and warm, demanding entrance, demanding response; and gradually more, and then more, a succession of long, deep, slow, melting kisses that turned Kayc's legs to water, robbed him of breath and of all rational thought, leaving him only with longing, with hunger, and desire. Rational thought had fled: all there was was _want, need, oh, sweet Lady … Dani …_

 

"Now," Dani murmured, sliding his mouth to Kayc's ear, "now will you take me to bed, Kayc?"

 

There were reasons he should say no; Kayc vaguely remembered them. But he couldn't remember now why he had ever thought they mattered. Only one thing mattered. Only this. Still, he made one last effort. "Thought you were hungry?"

 

"I am," Dani said, breathlessly. "I'm hungry … _so_ hungry … oh, Kayc, I'm _starving_ …"

 

***

 

The green coveralls were loose and fell away easily, revealing an expanse of pale flesh, freckled in places and lightly sprinkled with dark hair, and a surprise: a sunburst of gold and vermilion that flared brilliantly across Dani's left hip. Kayc ran a finger across it and laughed in delight and wonder as Dani shivered. "What's this?"

 

Dani craned and twisted in a vain attempt to see down his own back. "I remember …" he said, slowly. "I was fourteen … it was the first time I'd been off Halcyon alone … and I wanted something of my own, something …" His forehead creased, as the memory flickered just beyond reach. "It had something to do with my father, I know …"

 

Kayc bent to run his tongue slowly over the vivid flames. "Something your father would hate," he guessed. "Something to show that you were _you_, and not just his built-to-specs son and heir."

 

"Yes …" Dani said. "He couldn't bioengineer my mind, Kayc. If he could've, he would've done. But he couldn't. I was _me_ … I was never really who he wanted me to be …" he went on, dreamily, and rested his head on his arms, almost purring with satisfaction as Kayc traced the pattern again.

 

"Should've made it a target," Kayc said, and pounced, biting and licking and nibbling at the emblem, while Dani twisted and wriggled and squealed under him, protesting and squirming and mock-fighting until Kayc pinned him to the bed and held his wrists down, and sat for a moment, panting, seeing himself, all angled cheekbones and shaggy hair, reflected in Dani's dark, opaque eyes; seeing desire in those eyes, and urgency, and, oh, and love, all the love that he'd never dared let himself feel, that was burning now behind his breastbone, all that love and more, caught and reflected and flung back at him, his for the taking: all his.

 

Then Dani whispered, "Yes," and then he said, "Now!" and then he said, "Oh … Kayc …" And then, again, "_Kayc!_", and again, until finally, he could speak no more.

 

***

 

Afterward, they slept. Kayc woke first and lay for a while, propped on his elbow, watching Dani, wondering who he would wake to be. Sleep seemed to trigger the changes, or maybe only made them obvious. He half-hoped to see another change, half-feared it, not knowing what it might be. But when Dani did wake, it was the same trusting, childlike gaze that met Kayc's eyes, and the voice that announced, with a certain note of triumph, "_Now_ I'm hungry!" was the same, too, light and brittle and just the least bit slurred; no more so than it had been, but equally no less.

 

They had only a short time together after that. Kayc pushed Dani into the shower while he went to consider food and, after a moment's thought, picked up Dani's coveralls from the floor and threw them in after him since, as he said, they were dangerously close to being able to walk in there of their own accord. He made what would have been pancakes if he had known how to make pancakes – the thought was there, at any rate – and found himself remembering old Earth histories, and condemned men and hearty breakfasts, and wishing that he'd never learned these things.

 

He wished he could turn back. He wished Danaan were with him, or if not Danaan then anyone, any friendly face. It would be a difficult parting, he knew; the more so since, although he hadn't spoken of it again, Dani was clearly dreading his homecoming. He haunted Kayc about the ship, clinging to his side, so close that Kayc could feel his trembling. He was coming up on Halcyon's system now, back in the pilot's chair and guiding the ship past the warding beacons and sentry patrols, Dani kneeling beside him, watching his hands on the controls with bright, eager eyes. Watching closely – and learning; twice he put his hand out and moved Kayc's as he had been about to make a mistake, correcting him gently. He would have resented it, Kayc thought – learning had come hard to him – but instead he was overcome by a sense of wonder. He thought Dani must be mistaken. When Sieur Rydell saw his son, saw how far he had come in so short a time, how could he help but be proud?

 

The guidance systems led them to the Rydell estate, which took up one of the largest of a chain of islands in the southern hemisphere. _Lisa_ landed with only a very slight bump more, Kayc had to admit, by the luck of her name than by any skill on his part; Dani's nervousness seemed to be catching, and his own hands were shaking now. Still, he managed a smile for the boy.

 

"This is it!" he said, and wondered if his voice sounded as artificial to an outside ear as it did to his own. "You all set?"

 

Dani looked at him and bit his lip, then nodded once. "Goodbye, Kayc," he said solemnly, and pulled him into a hug. "Kayc? Please don't try to talk to my father. Just take your money and go. Please, will you?"

 

"Okay," Kayc said, bewildered. "If that's what you want. But don't you think he ought to know - ?"

 

"It doesn't matter!" Dani said. "It won't make a difference. Just … don't try to make things better. My dad's never, ever wrong, Kayc. That's all you need to know." He reached up his hands as if to push back his hair, and frowned, puzzled, at finding nothing there to be pushed back. "Open the hatch, Kayc."

 

There was a small knot of people on the landing pad outside the ship, half a dozen men, two women. _Security_, Kayc identified at least two of them; there were no weapons in evidence, but the alert stances and watchful eyes spoke for themselves. An older man in a modified military uniform was probably the flight controller; he presumed the rest were assorted staff members, there to do the things that Families, unlike normal folk, apparently couldn't manage without help – writing mail and planning parties, and such, and driving their own transport. He checked the thought, and tried to school away the sneer he suspected was twisting his mouth. They provided employment. They served a purpose.

 

Dani's father he immediately identified as the squarely built, greying man at the head of the group, and Dani's mother, he supposed, was the tall, hawk-faced woman beside him. They stood a little apart from each other, not touching, not talking, nor even looking at one another. Sieur Rydell had a dour, grim line to his mouth; his wife only looked tired. Neither of them seemed to be anticipating any joy in the upcoming reunion.

 

Kayc opened the hatch and lowered the ramp. "Okay. Let's get this over with." He reached for Dani's arm, but the boy shied away.

 

"Don't. Don't let them see you touch me." He looked up at Kayc, pleading in his eyes. "I said goodbye, Kayc. That was really goodbye. It's over now. I'm sorry." He took in a deep breath, and moved forward; after a shocked moment, Kayc followed.

 

He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting. Dani had implied there wouldn't be hugs and tears, but Kayc had thought that there'd be relief, at least. But Sieur Rydell only looked his son up and down as Dani came up, his bare feet stumbling and uncertain on the hard ground, and said, "So they sent you back. I hope you're proud of yourself. It's going to take House Rydell a long time to live down this little debacle."

 

Kayc watched as Dani ducked his head, looking away, and muttered something he couldn't catch. Nor, apparently, could Dani's father.

 

"Did you lose your voice, too?" Sieur Rydell asked harshly. "Don't you have anything to say for yourself?"

 

Dani's mother touched her husband's sleeve, and murmured, "Jey – don't. He can't understand … all the implications ..."

 

"Can he not?" Sieur Rydell snapped. "Does he at least understand that he's disgraced us all? Shamed our whole Family?" He stepped closer to Dani, put his hand under the boy's chin and forced his head up. "Is that simple enough for you? Your mother's done nothing in the past few days but fend off callers sending _sympathy._ Sympathy! As if we needed their pity!"

 

"You can't blame him – " his wife tried again.

 

"And I'm sure he doesn't understand that our stock's dropped twenty points since the news broke! You can't expect this poor, wounded soul to understand a thing like _that_, can you?"

 

Coming down the ramp and joining the group, Kayc saw Dani step away, and the glint of danger in his eyes. "Oh, I do," Dani said, sweetly. "I remember about stocks. That's a shame. But, you know, Father, you've got this whole nice big estate, and, like, ninety percent of the people in the system live in rat holes, so you're okay really."

 

Dani's father went white. "How _dare_ you - ?! he began, and took a step forward, threatening.

 

Dani stood his ground, his chin coming up in defiance. "_I_ was hurt," he said clearly. "_I_ was. I don't know what you did to the Coburgs, but it must've been pretty low. I'm not letting you blame me for it. I won't, Father."

 

"And is that what they put in your head? You think you can talk to me that way?" Sieur Rydell looked behind him. "Dai – take your brother up to the house. Keep him quiet, and don't take any crap from him. I'll be along as soon as I've finished here, and I'll take over from you."

 

"_Your_ house?" Dani asked. "You're going to keep me there? Then what? 'Cause you had me voted off the Board already – didn't you, Father?"

 

"What do you think?" Sieur Rydell demanded in return. "You don't imagine you're still competent to keep your place in the Family, do you? You were always arrogant, Dani, but even you must realise that you're useless to us now."

 

"I realise," Dani said, quietly. "I do. I just … You might have waited. That's all."

 

"Wait for what? You're finished in this Family, Dani. I'm sorry, but after what happened, you can't be associated with the business any longer, or we'll lose all client faith, if we haven't already. We'll find somewhere for you … somewhere out of the way …" He reached out to his son, and Dani flinched away. "What? I'm not going to _hurt_ you, Dani, is that what you thought? But you have to go away. We can't have you here."

 

Dani looked away, turning his bright smile on the man who'd come up and taken his arm, a taller, thinner, younger version of Sieur Rydell. "Davey," he said, and shook himself free. "You came to watch. That's nice. Are you very happy now? 'Cos you still don't inherit, you know." And, as his brother led him away toward a waiting groundcar, he called back over his shoulder, "Dad – did you wonder how the Coburgs knew just where to find me?"

 

Sieur Rydell shrugged the jibe away, and turned toward Kayc. "Pilot," he said, formal and polite. "Thank you for the delivery. I hope it didn't take you too far off your route?"

 

"No," Kayc said, bemusedly. "I was just – I had a delivery in this sector. Extra couple of days, that's all. I – uh – I need a, a receipt …" It seemed a weird thing to have to ask for, for a person; but there was that scrawled line on his manifest, the line that had begun all his troubles.

 

Sieur Rydell nodded, obviously hardly listening, and gestured toward the man in uniform. "My man will see to all that, get your ship ready to go, see that you're paid. Ask him to show you to the commissary while you're waiting." He turned away, finished with Kayc and ready to move on to the next item on his agenda.

 

"He could stay with me, if you wanted," Kayc suddenly blurted out, and flushed. What had he promised? But still – how could he not at least speak for Dani?

 

Sieur Rydell turned back and looked him up and down. He seemed coolly amused. "With you?" He glanced at the _Lisa_. "That hardly seems practicable. That's a one-man vessel, I believe."

 

"Yes – but …"

 

"Did you think I'd provide a better ship? Just to get my son away from here?" He cocked an eyebrow. "And what would you want with him, in any case?" Kayc's flush intensified. "M'm. Indeed. You don't think he's embarrassed this Family enough already?" He paused. "I suppose you wouldn't know anything about that, though, would you?"

 

Kayc found his voice. "I don't come from the same level of society as you, no. From what I've seen, I'm glad of it. Where I come from, we'd think it shameful to see someone we loved in trouble and turn our back on them. You didn't even apologise!"

 

"Apologise?" Sieur Rydell said frostily. "I'm not in the habit of apologising, pilot, least of all to my own children. He was careless, and he paid the price."

 

"He didn't deserve - !"

 

"I don't suppose he did," Sieur Rydell agreed. "Very few of us get what we deserve, pilot. But some of us deserve what we get." And with that, he turned and walked away, leaving Kayc face to face with Madama Rydell, who looked at him with cold, stone-hard eyes before moving to follow her husband. Kayc half-reached to her, stopping the gesture when he noted the guards' hands moving to their coats.

 

"Madama, he's your son, too," he said, desperate, trying to reach to the core of her. "Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

 

She stopped then, and swung back; came very close to him, her face only inches away from his. He'd been wrong; her eyes had only been masked. Now they burnt in her white, strained face.

 

"Listen," she said, almost hissing the words, "listen to me, you smug, sanctimonious, bleeding-heart piece of trash – you listen! Yes, I'm Dani's mother, and my husband was so determined to be sure that his son _was_ his son that we had a team of security guards around the room all the time we were making the genetic splice. And then I had that _thing_ transplanted into my body, and I went through nine months of hell, the way no woman of my station's needed to do for a hundred years. I carried him inside me, and I gave birth to him, I breastfed him and changed his diapers, I bought him toys and took him to school and threw him parties, I dressed him, and I nursed him, and I cut his hair … he was my _son_, and I loved him, and I'm telling you now, _pilot_, that the kindest thing you could have done for my boy would have been to put a pillow over his face in the night and let him die. Because what you've brought back to me isn't my son. It isn't Dani. And I want no part of it." She stepped back a pace, and raked his body up and down with her eyes, a glare that seemed to sear him to the soul. "If you'd wanted to make it special, you could have strangled him while you were fucking him. Isn't that what you want him for? A pet, a toy? Or do you just want the joy of having a Family Scion be your whore?"

 

Kayc found he'd fallen halfway back toward the ship, and rallied himself. "It isn't like that! Madama Rydell – he was happy on the ship, with me. He felt safe, he was learning – he was getting back some of what he'd lost. Your husband's just going to lock him up and throw away the code and pretend he never existed!"

 

"And you want to save him," she said, sarcastic.

 

"Madama – " Kayc held out his hands helplessly. "I love him. I want to help him."

 

"Love him?" she said. "So do I, pilot. And I wish the Coburgs had killed him."

 

Kayc jolted; they'd have thought it, he knew, but to say it right out in plain words - ! "You – no! No, that's not … He's still … he's still a _person_, a good person, a whole person, even if he's not the one he was. You can't blame him for what they turned him into!"

 

"I don't," she said, flatly. "But I don't want to see it, either. I want to forget this ever happened."

 

"Maybe you should ask House Coburg to help you with that!"

 

She slapped him, then fell back, her hands to her own face, tears in her eyes. "_How dare you!_"

 

He shook his head, dazed. He knew he'd gone too far. He would never have spoken that way to a woman of his own class, and to have done so to one of the Families … he was lucky she hadn't ordered him shot where he stood. But she was only standing, staring at him, her face as broken as her son's. "Do you want to know something else?" she whispered. "Now I have to do all that, all over again. House Rydell still needs an heir – all we have is a half-wit and a bastard. And my husband doesn't take chances. Dani's new brother is locked in a hospital vault somewhere, just waiting to be unfrozen and implanted in me. And the Lady only knows what this fucking world has in store for _that_ poor baby." She ran her hands over her face; her makeup remained flawless. "You think I'm a bitch, and maybe I am. But maybe _you_ should try being a mother, and see how well you come out of it!"

 

And to that, Kayc found he had no rational reply at all.

 

***

 

Kayc watched Halcyon disappear behind him, and could feel only relief. No more Families, ever again, he vowed. Simple folk with their straightforward lies and self-involvement and malice, they were bad enough. At least when they stabbed you in the back, they'd do it with their own hands; they didn't keep an entire team of staff to do it for them.

 

He wished he could have got Dani away. He didn't know what Sieur Rydell had planned, but he was sure that Dani's happiness came far down the list of priorities. He tried to put the boy out of his mind; but he was there now, and wouldn't, couldn't be shifted. The ghost of him seemed to haunt the little ship; there was no inch of it that didn't hold his memory.

 

Well. It was the past and, in time, it would fade, as every other hurt had, finally faded. And for now, Nuestro Salvador had been kept waiting for its shipment two days overdue as it was. The least he could do for them was make the best possible speed he could. He suited up, laid in the course, and engaged the FTL.

 

Nuestro Salvador had been the first hospital station built in this sector, the first dedicated hospital station in the system. A century ago, it had been a wonder of modern technology; but time had passed, newer, better facilities had been built, and gradually it had fallen into disrepair. It existed now solely as a charitable facility, tending patients who couldn't afford anything better, or whom the large, Family-run hospital stations turned away. Money was short; Kayc's shipment was superseded medical equipment, and drugs that were past their use-by date but still moderately effective. This was one of his regular runs – Danaan, of course, had set up the original connection for him - and over the past few months he'd come to know and become friendly with a number of the staff, so he wasn't especially surprised when the elderly Doctor Jaffee stopped him outside the supply depot and invited him for coffee; he'd come to think of Izak as a friend, almost as a father-substitute, and looked forward to their talks.

 

They found an empty table; sat. Izak said nothing; only looked. _Looked_. While Kayc sat, and searched his conscience, and felt more and more like a bug under a magnifying glass, slowly being fried around the edges. "What?!" he finally demanded.

 

"I'm disappointed in you, Kayc," Izak said, at last. "I thought we were friends."

 

_That_ surprised Kayc. "I thought so as well. I'm sorry – what – "

 

"Why didn't you bring him to me?"

 

Kayc blinked. "Bring – who?" Then he realised. "Dani? You heard about that, too?"

 

Izak nodded. "Heard what happened to him. Saw the broadcast. Heard you were bringing him back to Halcyon. Heard you really didn't want to … I hear a lot of stuff, Kayc."

 

"Evidently," Kayc observed. "But I don't understand - why would I bring him here? No offence, Izak, but you don't have the facilities here to treat him." He looked hard at the older man, wondering. "Unless there's something I don't know."

 

Izak leaned back in his chair, easing the pain of his bad hip. "There are many things you don't know, Kayc. Specifically, you evidently don't know that Nuestro Salvador's been helping refugees - fugitives, transients - since before you were born. Lady, since before _I_ was born."

 

There was a buzzing in his ears; Kayc felt a wave of dizziness, and fought it down with difficulty. "No," he heard himself saying, in a voice he hardly recognised, "No. I didn't know that."

 

"Well," Izak said, his own voice arid, "wouldn't be much of a secret otherwise, would it, now?"

 

"Then," Kayc demanded reasonably, "how would I know to - ?"

 

"People _know_, Kayc. They know people, who know other people, who have a contact, who heard a rumour – did you even think to ask for help?"

 

Kayc shifted uncomfortably. Asking for help wasn't something he did. He was independent; proud of it. It was bad enough that he owed Danaan so much, he didn't need to go building up a huge backlog of debt. Which made him wonder … "Does Danaan know?"

 

"Danaan?" Izak's surprise seemed to indicate not. "We try to keep under the Families' radar. In fact, that's kind of the point of the whole thing … why did you think Danaan might know?"

 

"She asked me if I'd been in touch with you," Kayc said, "that's all. I thought she meant, to say I'd be late with the shipment, so I said yes, I had. I just wondered – if she meant something else – " And if so, then he'd missed it; missed his chance to keep Dani with him, safe, to save him from his Family. Lady; he hoped that wasn't what she'd meant.

 

"Danaan." Izak seemed to be considering the idea. "No. I've spoken to her, and I'm pretty sure she doesn't know. I wish she had've done, so she could've got you here. She's about the only Family member I'd trust.  We would have helped you, Kayc – we'd have helped you get him away someplace you could both be safe, at least for a while. Someplace he could rest up and start to heal. Lady, you never know – maybe there _might_ have been something we could've done for him. You should've brought him to us."

 

"I couldn't – his father was expecting me to deliver him – " He was floundering, Kayc realised, and abandoned hope of ever finishing a sentence again. "He – " he tried, and gave up.

 

Izak heaved a deep sigh. "You have no imagination, son," he said in reproof. "The kid was violent, running amok, you couldn't control him, he triggered the airlock, you lost all your cargo and barely saved the ship – how does that sound? And Sieur Rydell's so glad to have his problem taken off his hands, he pays you your shipping fee, doesn't ask too many questions, and compensates you for the lost cargo into the bargain."

 

Now Kayc was wholly at a loss for words. He had known that Izak was a good doctor, a good man, a good friend; he hadn't realised he could have added 'criminal mastermind' to the list. "Yes," he said finally. "Yes. That would've been a good idea."

 

"No kidding," Izak agreed. "Well. Danaan's been in touch with me, like I told you – she's worried about you, apparently – and she asked me to let you know that she'll see what she can do for Dani. We don't think Sieur Rydell would do his own son harm. But we don't think he's going to be too worried if harm should happen to come to him. And that brother – Sieur Rydell's little mistake – he can't be trusted. Dani had some very nasty so-called accidents when he was a kid. Danaan's going to offer a private recovery facility – apparently House Whitaker's had a few incidents it's not too proud of, too. She thinks she can talk the old man round, get Dani's mother on her side." He fixed Kayc with an accusing stare. "He was important to you, Kayc. You should've tried harder. If you've lost him, you know, you only have yourself to blame. You should never have let him go."

 

"Thank you," Kayc muttered. "I think I got that, Izak." He raised his head and looked straight at the doctor. "Get me a second chance. You and Danaan do that for me, and I will owe you _everything_. I'll be beholden to you for the rest of my life. And I won't even care. I'll do anything. Anything."

 

***

 

There was one more thing he had to do on Nuestro Salvador; a side trip to a remote lab. He found the vault he needed by memory, and stayed there for a while, fingers pressed against the glass.

 

_His son_. Or he would be. One day, when Kayc was in the position to be a father. For now, this was all he had left of Lisa, all that remained of his past, his only promise of a future; and making that life happen was Kayc's sole aim and purpose. Or it had been.

 

He had tried to keep himself remote from the world, from its people and its problems and all its pain. But the world had found him, and the rest had followed, as it was inevitable that it would. The funny thing was that now, if he could go back, he wouldn't change things. All the anger and frustration and hurt meant nothing; they were a fair price to pay for the joy that Dani had, however briefly, brought him. That, if the Lady was with them, he would bring him again. That they would bring one another.

 

Eventually he made his way back to the hangar and boarded the _Lisa_. The first thing he saw as he came aboard was the spare suit that Danaan had given him, tossed in a heap on the cabin floor. He paused, wary: the Lady knew, Nuestro Salvador wasn't a crime-free zone, but why would anyone break into his ship _after_ he'd unloaded his cargo?

 

The ship was quiet, only the hum of the rechargers keeping it from total silence. He stepped fully inside, and stood still for a moment, letting his gaze sweep around the cabin. Nothing seemed out of place, nothing out of the ordinary. Only that suit, that he'd last seen piled in a corner in the cargo hold. Only that.

 

He took a step further in; two more strides, and he was at the galley. He waited for a moment just beyond the door, then swung in suddenly, thinking to take his intruder by surprise.

 

The galley was empty; only a cockroach scuttled across the floor, causing Kayc to curse. Now he'd have to get an exterminator in before he could lift off. The delay would lose him the job he'd provisionally lined up, and the expense … well. He had the Rydell bounty; that was a buffer between him and insolvency. So maybe there'd been more to this little side-trip than misery and heartbreak and the discovery that a man could have all the wealth and power in the system, and still be less than a man. Which he'd never doubted for a moment in the first place; he hadn't needed the lesson. But he would remember it.

 

He was suddenly cripplingly, achingly tired. It had been a hell of a couple of days; a hell of a life. A life of hell. And he'd been the one to come through it scatheless. He turned the corner to the sleeping alcove, his hand going to the seal of his collar; froze.

 

Dani lay curled in the very middle of his bunk, fast asleep, his bare, dirty feet tucked beneath him, his arms covering his face. Kayc stood for a while, watching him, and anyone who saw him in those moments might have thought him another man: a younger, kinder, gentler man, and one who had lived a happy and a carefree life. Finally, he made himself move. He stepped fully into the alcove, and settled on the edge of the bunk. Dani squirmed a little in his sleep, but didn't wake.

 

"Dani." He was whispering. Why? There was no-one to hear him. "Dani!" he said again, louder, and he put his hand to Dani's shoulder and shook him.

 

The brown eyes opened as wary slits, then widened. "Kayc!" Dani uncurled, stretched, rolled over and snuggled up against Kayc's leg. "M'mmm …" he murmured, sleepily. "'s nice. I missed you …"

 

The warmth and weight of the boy against him was the most welcome thing Kayc had known, he thought, in his life. And one of the least explicable. "I missed you, too," he said softly, and let his hand drop to Dani's head, stroking through the close-cropped hair, the downy stubble at the back of the neck. _He's really here,_ he thought, _I haven't lost him. But how do I keep him?_ "How did you get here? Did your father … did he change his mind? Send you to me?" Sooner expect the rivers to run upstream and the seas to boil dry, but strange things happened.

 

"M'm?" Dani appeared to have dropped off to sleep again for a moment. Kayc sighed – love, he was finding, did not preclude irritation – and repeated his question. "Oh … no. They made you leave me. And I didn't want you to leave me. So I came back."

 

Kayc found himself sighing again. "_How_, Dani? Didn't anyone stop you?"

 

Dani rolled onto his back and smiled at him, his brilliant, innocent, empty smile. "No-one saw me. I didn't want them to see me. So they didn't." He began to work his way up to a sitting position, using Kayc for balance. "'s how it works now. _Quid pro quo_."

 

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Kayc said, in some despair. "Have you?"

 

"I'm making perfect sense," Dani said, with dignity. "Just not in your reality. I slid between the cracks. 's all. Will you keep me now? May I stay?" He was half in Kayc's arms now, his own arms wound around the older man, Kayc thought, at least twice, in defiance of all the laws of physics. He gave in to the situation for a moment, bent his head and found Dani's mouth, warm and eager and urgent under his own.

 

_If time stopped now_, Kayc thought. It could stop, everything could stop, he could be caught in this moment forever: just he and Dani, in one another's arms, kissing as though they could become one flesh, just as their breath had become one. But time moved on, and he had to come up for air at last. Dani seemed not to need to breathe, and moved toward him again. Kayc held him by the shoulders and kept him back. "No. We have to talk about this. I didn't want to let you go in the first place – but I didn't think I had a choice. What's changed? How are you here now?"

 

Dani sat back on his heels. "Nothing's changed. But they don't want me. And you do. Even when you pretend you don't, you do. Don't you?"

 

"_They_," Kayc pointed out, "are very rich and very powerful, and very bad to have as enemies."

 

"_Love is not love_," Dani said, in a voice that was not his own, neither his old, precise, aristocratic voice, nor the lighter, childish tones of the mindwipe, "_which alters when it alteration finds_. They altered, Kayc. They didn't love me." He laid his hand on Kayc's shoulder and looked up earnestly into his face. "You didn't. You do."

_Lady help me_, Kayc thought, _I do. And I can't let him go again._

 

There are certainties in the universe: time moves forward, gravity falls. This was no less sure than those things. But how, Kayc thought, how he was supposed to keep this damaged, lost boy safe – he, who was barely master of his own fate – that was as uncertain as the wind or the weather; as improbable as love itself.

 

He only knew that he had to try. He had no choice.

 

"We'll need to reprovision," he said. "And you … you need _everything_, I'm going to burn those coveralls if I have to look at them one more day." He stood and held out his hand. "We're supposed to ship out in a couple of hours. You think you could be ready by then?"

 

Dani's smile paled the stars into oblivion. "I'm ready now," he said, and took Kayc's hand. "And, Kayc? I bet I can still fly this thing better'n you …"

 

***


End file.
